FRIESEN: This job's a Keeper

It was a phone call Winnipegger Jeff McWhinney won’t soon forget. A call that changed his life.

Four years ago, on the two-year anniversary of his dad’s death, McWhinney picked up his phone to find Canadian Football Hall of Fame boss Mark DeNobile on the other end of the line.

DeNobile wanted him to take on the job of Keeper of the Grey Cup. McWhinney, a Delta Airlines customer service agent by day, had done some volunteer work for the Hall, taking part in VIP meet-and-greets and the like.

But it was his vast knowledge of so many of the names engraved on the trophy’s polished plates that really blew football people away.

One name in particular: his father’s.

Glenn McWhinney played for Edmonton and Winnipeg in the 1950s, helping the Eskimos win their first Grey Cup in ’54 and joining the Blue Bombers for the 1955 and ’56 seasons.

While with Edmonton, McWhinney earned a nickname that brings this whole story full circle.

On his first trip to face his hometown Bombers at the old Osborne Stadium, the all-purpose back was filling in for injured quarterback Frank Filchock when he turned an early broken play into a touchdown.

Filchock called him “Keeper,” and the name stuck.

The coincidence didn’t hit McWhinney until sometime after he started taking care of the Grey Cup.

“I never recognized it until one of the guys said, ‘Hey, Keeper.’ And I looked around and had a flashback of my dad,” McWhinney recalled. “This has done two things for me. One, I fell in love with this game. I fell in love with my country. But the biggest part is I’m able to connect with my dad.

“Because it was very tough for me to let go of my dad. My dad and I were best friends.”

You can imagine how much McWhinney enjoys handing out his Hall of Fame business card, where on the back, at the top-left corner, you’ll find the words, The ‘Keeper.’

Flying around the country with the 110-year-old trophy, McWhinney, 53, considers himself part of a fraternity.

“The sons of the CFL,” he calls it. “It’s an informal, unsanctioned fraternity. But it’s there. Did I author it? No. But I have the key to it, and it’s the Grey Cup.”

During public appearances, people will come up to McWhinney and tell him their dad’s name, or their grandfather’s, is on the trophy.

“And I’ll say, ‘Guess what — let’s get a picture together.’ It turned out to be something they never had a chance to do, and I was able to give them that. Their Grey Cup moment with their dad again.”

McWhinney constantly runs into fellow members of his fraternity, and gets a story out of each one. Some have never seen their dad’s name-plate. Some have heard stories, but don’t believe them until they see it with their own eyes.

The connection isn’t exclusive to the families of former players, either.

McWhinney had the Cup in Winnipeg this past weekend, and ran into a person who’d been to some 15 Grey Cup games, but who’d lost touch with the CFL ever since his father, a big CFL fan, died.

The man finally made his first trip to the new stadium, took one look at the trophy – and was in tears.

McWhinney sees his job in another way, too: as the spokesperson for the 3,743 names – he rattles the number off like he’s telling somebody how many kids he has – engraved on the Cup.

“I see Kenny Ploen, and I see Norm Rauhaus, I see Gordie Rowland, Peter Dalla Riva, Chris Walby – these guys are the faces of the plates. But I have to be the voice behind the names,” he said. “Because they’re humble guys that would not say, ‘Hey, look at me, look at me – four-time Grey Cup champion, ’58, ’59, ’61, ’62…’ I get to talk about those guys.

“I was weaned and rocked on this stuff. I was lucky enough to have Bud Grant show up at my door and ask my dad to go hunting.”

McWhinney doesn’t have to hunt long to find the name plate that’s most special to him.

A name that tugs at his heart every time he pulls on a pair of white gloves to show off Canadian football’s holy grail.

“Every time I unveil the Cup, my dad’s with me every time,” he said. “He’s the first plate I touch when I bring it out. And it’s the last plate I touch when I put it back in.

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